Beneath the Surface This project started because I was interested in the hundreds of towns around America that have been evacuated and then purposely flooded in order to make reservoirs. In many cases, the streets, the buildings, still exist underwater. When droughts happen, these town resurface and the people who lived in these towns often come back to see what’s left of their old homes. To me, this was a very powerful image. I saw it as such a perfect example of the idea that “you can never go home again.” As I started researching I kept finding all these different parallels between water and memory, between water and time, in mythology, psychology, physiology, in the great floods, and icebergs, in swimming pools, and ancient rivers. It began to feel like maybe the reason water kept appearing as a metaphor for these things, was because it spoke to a basic human connection between the two. That maybe somewhere in the nature of water itself, we could find the nature of the human mind. (((NOTE: This piece is a slight departure from my earlier work. The piece is written less as a monologue and more like a transom of ideas set to music that I've written for it. It’s separated into 7 different sections, like tracks on a record, each with a different perspective on the relationship between water and memory. So to that extent it should be listened to more like a music album with narration instead of lyrics.)))
Direct download: Beneath_the_Surface.mp3
Category:Audio Stories -- posted at: 11:45pm EDT

THE VOICES YOU HEARD IN BENEATH THE SURFACE INCLUDE: Nell Haynes (Voice 1 & 7), Elaine Kanak (Voice 2) Lauren Fath (Voice 3), Abe Ingle (Voice 5), Joanne Colonna (Voice 6), and others. SPECIAL THANKS TO: Charlie Scammell, Joshua Zavin, Sam Neuman, Dave Riemenschneider, Sean Gannet, Kolter Campbell for calling and contributing their thoughts on memory. Also Ryan Good, Cara Francis, Jessica Solce, Renee Erikson-Farr for performing a section of the piece that I ultimately and heartlessly cut.
Category:Performance Credits -- posted at: 4:16pm EDT